Commentary: If you want things to change …

Lee H. Hamilton

Published
4:15 am CST, Tuesday, December 19, 2017

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One of the gifts of living in a representative democracy is that voting is only one of the rights it confers. For ordinary people who want to make change — who in some way want to alter their neighborhood or town or state or even the nation — the promise exists that by dint of their own efforts they can do so. This is a precious gift.

But it is not an easy one to enjoy. Even in a democracy, bringing about significant change requires hard work, and a specific set of skills and capabilities.

To begin with, you can’t make change alone. You’ll require the help of others. This means you need to be able to look around you and understand the political lay of the land. How intensely will this or that individual or group support you? Will they actually help, or just pay lip service?

You also have to take responsibility for being the expert on your proposal. You’ll need to understand its weaknesses and strengths, its potential impact, and the arguments both for and against it.

This is because you’ll also need to communicate constantly, whether you’re trying to build support one on one or before a gathering of hundreds. On radio, television, in print, online — it’s impossible to over-communicate.

And though amplifying the reach of your voice has value, so does retail persuading — plain one-on-one conversations that teach you which arguments carry weight and which don’t. Because although you might be starting with like-minded allies, inevitably you’ll need to broaden your coalition to include people who were initially skeptical or saw the issue differently from you.

Part of the art of building coalitions is being open to proposals that alter or change your proposal. You may have put a lot of work into designing and drafting it, but one of the first things you’ll encounter is someone who’s got an amendment. And you’ll need money: to communicate, to advertise, to travel.

Fortunately, there is no single center of power in this country. It’s built into the idea of representative democracy that making change is difficult. But most of us wouldn’t have it any other way.

Few things can exceed the satisfaction of helping shape the direction and success of your community or nation.

Lee Hamilton is a senior adviser for the Indiana University Center on Representative Government, a distinguished scholar in the IU School of Global and International Studies and a professor of practice for the IU School of Public and Environmental Affairs. He was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives for 34 years.